A FORMER Scottish Labour leader has criticised an SNP MSP for tweeting about the Celtic game during a debate on gender law reforms.

Johann Lamont slated SNP backbencher James Dornan, an avid Celtic fan and the MSP for Glasgow Cathcart, for complaining about the refereeing of a match between his team and Livingston on Wednesday.

His tweet came late into a more than 12-hour sitting of the parliament which ended in the early hours of Thursday morning as MSPs debated the Scottish Government’s plans to make it easier for transgender people to change their gender on legal documents.

The plans eventually passed with an overwhelming majority but not before a week of marathon Holyrood sessions which lasted much longer than is normal for the Edinburgh parliament.

READ MORE: UK Government bid to block gender bill is 'betrayal of devolution settlement'

At around 9.30pm on Wednesday, Dornan took his attention away from the debate to tweet: “Takes them longer to find a way to scrub out a goal for Celtic than three penalty decisions at Pittodrie. To think I was looking forward to VAR too”.

Lamont, who led Scottish Labour from 2011 to 2014, said: “I was at the game. It is called being retired. It was a bit grim. But far less grim than making law and commentating on the football at the same time.”.

She had been responding to a Tweet from an account that had retweeted Dornan’s comments with the reply: “This gives you an idea of how seriously the payroll vote are taking the third stage 'debate' on the [Gender Recognition Reform] Bill - no surprise rights for rapists are getting nodded through and ministers don't need to have answers to questions.”

The account referred to the rejection of a bid by an SNP MSP who had attempted to include a provision in the bill that would pause the process of anyone applying for a gender recognition certificate if they had been charged with a sex crime until their case was disposed of.

SNP MSP Gillian Martin successfully amended the law, which was passed with cross-party support on Thursday, to bar anyone subject to a sexual harm prevention order or sexual offences prevention order from applying for a legal gender change.

The UK Government has since indicated it may intervene to block the changes with Prime Minister Rishi Sunak saying it was "reasonable" for Westminster to put the new legislation under the microscope. 

Scottish Secretary Alister Jack said the UK Government would consider issuing an order to prevent the bill from being signed off by the King - the rubber stamp process which make a bill officially become the law of the land.